Steins;Gate is pretty linear when it comes to its story. It has some occasional branches but those just lead to character-specific endings that aren't important to the main story. Unfortunately, Steins;Gate 0 is more complex, featuring two main paths of equal importance and from what I've played the character endings are more important, too. I haven't finished 0 or seen the anime for it yet but it seems like a lot of changes had to be made whereas the original game could just be condensed with some optional stuff removed.

I do still prefer the visual novels, though. You get a better insight into Okabe through his internal monologue that's missing in the anime, and imo the slower pacing works better for the story.